


the girl who touched gold

by savrenim



Category: Leagues and Legends - E. Jade Lomax
Genre: Character Study, Gen, I am cry for Cassandra Graves that is the entire plot, I have slightly updated this from the version I posted on tumblr forever ago, I posted this on tumblr forever ago but have been thinking about this series a bunch more lately, abilities swap, and figured why not throw it up here too, as this is actually fanfiction, huge spoilers through the first half of giantkiller, sad siblings, seriously do not read this or even further on these tags if you haven't read that book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-04-05 17:04:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19044682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savrenim/pseuds/savrenim
Summary: In this world, in any world, Cassandra Graves knows: she will always be a monster.





	the girl who touched gold

Cassandra Graves knew from before she could remember that she was a monster. She knew it from the tightness of her mother’s hands. She knew it from the reflections of fear in the servants’ eyes. She knew it from the firm press of her father’s lips.

She didn’t remember the first time she’d done it. How she was just starting to burble the first of her attempts at speech, just starting to reach and move and pull on the world, and she’d pulled sparks from the air. Her mother dropped her. She didn’t hit the ground.

For a while, it had been only her mother who knew, her mother who had whispered to her about the curses that could come from her fingers and how she couldn’t let anyone see, she couldn’t let her father see. But Cassandra was a precocious child. She liked to _push_. She liked to _win_. When the stable-boy’s son had challenged her to play swords with sticks and then given her a stick that broke in one blow, and then tried to _hit_ her –- she didn’t even need to think, her fingers flashed and the boy slammed against the wall and he was the one whose cries split the air, not her.

(Later she would forget the smile of victory that she’d worn then. When the boy went running to his mother, when the servants started whispering, when her mother had summoned her to her chambers and slapped her across the face and she tried to hold in her tears, her fingers itching, although it never occurred to her to defend herself.)

Cassandra was five years old. She was a precocious child, when she was summoned before her father, trying to hide the redness on her cheek and wetness in her eyes. For a long time, he just looked at her, up and down like she was some sort of exotic breed of creature at an auction, and she stood as still as if she were covered in chains.

Finally, her father said, “Show me.”

She lifted her hand, then let it drop. The gold did the rest of the talking.

Her father circled her, staring her up and down. She stopped breathing, held herself as still as stone, waiting for the avalanche to come roaring down.

“You have a gift, Cassandra. But you must understand what a responsibility it is. We are here to bring balance to the world. There are mages who selfishly refuse to share their gifts. But you’re not like them, are you?”

“No, papa,” she said, her voice dry.

“Good,” he said. “I can do great things with you, Cassandra. Great things.”

~~~~

She learned to fight proper, against men in metal with sticks far sharper than the stable-boy’s son had, and she always won. She fought with a world of golden fire at her back, and she hated it. She never smiled in victory because it never was victory. She smiled at the names they called her, _demon, witch, Mayor’s monster, murderess,_ because they feared her when she smiled.

She was nine when Mayor Graves first got into a disagreement with a neighboring town over territory. They sent a small army. He sent her with a small escort, and instructions to leave no one alive. He pet her hair when she returned mere hours later. There was no smile of victory on her lips. She was her father’s little killer, and she bit monster, murderess, _mage_ from her tongue.

~~~~

Mayor Graves was a petty tyrant of the mountains. He knew very well how to remain such: to keep squabbles between towns small and personal, to keep whispers of power and weapons like his Cassandra mere whispers, to build rumors that were fear amidst the cold air and grey peaks and loose legends down in the lowlands. Whispers about how mages disappeared in the night, whispers of experiments, whispers a witch who could tear the Elsewhere from anyone’s hands, straight from a storybook.

Mayor Graves started to send his daughter to do his trade negotiations. He found that a little fear did a lot in sealing deals in his favor.

~~~~

Cassandra Graves did not keep track of how many people she’d killed. The blood never landed on her hands, not directly. She just flicked her long fingers and the golden fire did the rest.

When they said “ _monster_ ,” she agreed.

~~~~

When Samuel Graves was born, with his eyes the color of fire-touched gold that glowed for weeks before they faded to grey, his mother wept. Mayor Graves stroked the baby’s head with a faraway look in his eyes. Cassandra snuck into the nursery room in the night to stare at the new little spectacle. With his eyes closed, he looked so normal, and so small. She tried to avoid the baby when he was awake, because she didn’t need his eyes to remind her of everything that she hated.

~~~~

Mayor Graves loved his little seer. He doted on him, fed the boy cakes and honey and gave him everything his heart desired.

Samuel Graves desired books. He could see everything twisted and intertwined between people, but pages didn’t lie, they didn’t try to deceive him. His father _wanted_ , and that _want_ was sharp behind every sweet thing that passed Samuel’s sticky hands. It had teeth sharp like wolves, that _want_ , and it was always watching him. Books didn’t watch him, books didn’t want anything from him, so he buried his eyes in them. 

His father would take him up to the highest tower, would tell him to look out across the vastness of the world, and that everything he saw would be his one day. His father was building a better world, a fairer world. " _You see the truth of the world_ ,” his father would say. “ _We can make it a better truth._ ”

Samuel liked his books better. He was blissfully oblivious if books were ever lying to him.

~~~~

Samuel was small and spindly. He’d fall down if the wind gusted too hard. Cassandra took to walking the gardens when she knew he was going to play outside, and would flick her fingers to make a shield against the wind. He played outside less once he learned to read, deciding to surround himself instead in words and ink and old parchment. Cassandra magicked all of his backpacks with lifting spells for the days that she could not go with him to the library.

~~~~

Mayor Graves wanted to teach Samuel everything, including the machines that he’d tinker with in his basement. Sam would perch on a bench and ignore the manic delight that danced around his father, instead concentrating on his father’s fingers: how they would deftly fly over the parts and the tools and build and unbuild the world.

Samuel concentrated on the clever fingers, and dreamed of fingers that could shape and unshape the world with the golden fire that clung to them all the time, and the rare smile that would light of the face of the owner of those fingers when she _made_ something, something beautiful, and he’d laugh jump and try to touch it. He’d chase around the golden butterflies that she’d conjure like he was a child, and forget that his eyes held secrets that his father mined for every day.

~~~~

Cassandra knew who she was, and she knew what she was. Monster. Witch. Murderess. Her father’s pet _mage_ , the one who was allowed to live because she _shared her gifts_. She saw it reflected in everyone’s eyes, how those eyes narrowed and flitted to the ground as they bowed their heads. She heard the curses they whispered, and wore the foul words as titles.

Cassandra was born a monster. She was born to be feared, she was carved so sharp that no man would ever gaze at her and see lips that could part supple instead of twist into a cold line, she wore her long skirts like regalia for battle and flicked her fingers instead of a sword. Cassandra was not made for lovers. She was not made for friends. She was made for fire. For the nausea of watching it all burn.

Cassandra was a monster.

But when her little brother first looked at her -- 

his eyes widened, and he smiled and gurgled a little, and clapped his chubby little hands together. Like with everything he could see, he couldn't see any of that. Instead, he reached towards her -- 

_like she lit up his whole world._


End file.
